A literary jazz riff, four decades in the making

Ralph Ellison, it turns out, lived the plot of a mid-'60s novel: a little known author and musician, he published his first book at the age of 39. "Invisible Man" is both critically acclaimed and a bestseller. Ellison wins the National Book Award, the first black writer to be awarded the most prestigious award in American literature. Now world-famous, Ellison announces in interviews that he has already begun work on his follow-up novel. For the next four decades he labors on that second novel